


God Takes Care Of Himself

by lastwingedthing



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-27
Updated: 2009-12-27
Packaged: 2017-10-05 08:40:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/39819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lastwingedthing/pseuds/lastwingedthing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life's different, out in the desert.</p>
            </blockquote>





	God Takes Care Of Himself

**Author's Note:**

> Additional warning: This contains a brief mention of a graphic child death that occurs in the series.
> 
> Written for labyrinthically for the YAGKYAS Fic Exchange. The title is from Modest Mouse.
> 
> I'm not sure how to categorise this - really slashy gen? Preslash? It's Rudy and Pappy, dammit, interpret it as you will.

Dawn in Iraq can mean anything from missile attacks to each day's fuckup coming fresh and new from Command to improbably beautiful scenes of shepherds with their flocks, the sound of bells in the golden light. Today, there's bone-numbing cold, exhaustion Rudy feels right down to his bones, a distant noise of choppers far overhead as the first grey smears of desert sand creep into view. Even on the worst days, watching as pitch blackness becomes vague grey outlines becomes tawny sand and hazy skies, Rudy can't help feeling almost happy, full of hope. Watching the darkness turn into light – it's a little too over-the-top Christian for him, or at least it should be, but then Jesus Christ was a superhero too. Rudy can't help but feel faith.

He yawns, so hard it feels like his jaw's gonna crack right in two; he needs to stop daydreaming – does it still count as daydreaming when it happens before sunrise? – and focus on staying awake and alert. This whole morning Rudy's been hard-pressed to keep his Zen calm in place – or at least, he would have if he hadn't been so damn _tired_. At oh-four hundred the whole platoon had been woken up – or at least, the few lucky members of the platoon who had actually gotten the chance to sleep had been woken up – for some apparently urgent mission. Yet here they all were still, two hours later, waiting for more orders barely five klicks down the road. He hasn't even had the chance to make coffee yet today, and that is just _sad_. Rudy's had to accept that compromising is something he's here in Iraq to experience, but there's compromises and compromises, and eating instant coffee dry out of a bag well and truly crosses that line. Actually, just watching his fellow warriors, his brothers in arms, launch a needless assault on their tastebuds by eating coffee dry out of a bag crosses Rudy's line, it's just that no-one listens to him on this one. It's hard, and annoying, but then overcoming the obstacles that life throws in front of you is what Rudy's here to do.

There's a soft snort from the seat beside him, and then Pappy looks at him sideways, taking in Rudy's yawns, which admittedly are kind of epic and huge. "Were you just asleep, Rudy?" He's leaning against the side of their victor, forehead resting on the window. He looks like shit – well, they all look like shit. Rudy hates seeing it on any of them, but somehow it's always worse when it's Pappy that's hurting and there's nothing Rudy can do about it. He looks the other man over, taking in bloodshot eyes with dark shadows under them, face gone taut with stress and exhaustion, cheeks and chin rough with thirty-six hours of stubble. Rudy's really going to have to do something about that soon, before Sixta gets on their ass again. What is _with_ that man?

"You are hallucinating, brother," he says sadly, shaking his head. "Making baseless accusations against your fellow man – where's your warrior spirit? You're letting the stupidity get to you, Pap. You need to let all this go. Think zen, like I do. Find your inner – " He loses the rest of the sentence in another yawn.

Pappy snorts with quiet laughter next to him; Rudy sneaks another glance and sees, with a small amount of satisfaction, that the smile's gone right up to his TL's eyes. It isn't much, but it's better than nothing; Rudy hates feeling useless.

He leans back in his seat for a moment, stretching, trying to keep his eyes open and mostly failing. Not even the sight of the desert outside, shapes of everything now sharp and defined in the early morning light, is working as a distraction; and of course prayer is the opposite of useful. It's a little bit embarrassing to find himself falling asleep to the words he'd chosen to guide him, but then he's never claimed to be anything other than human. Also, he hasn't slept more than an hour at a time for at least a week, and unlike some of the other drivers, Rudy doesn't resort to chemicals to keep himself awake. Well, mostly – caffeine doesn't count, right? Rudy tries to take good care of his health, not that there's much chance to do that out here in the desert with the sand and the heat and the pressed meat patties in the MRE's, but it's not just that. He still can't really believe that no-one in Colbert's victor has killed Ray Person yet; despite everything, he's a good driver and good RTO, and it would be hard for Brad to get by without him, but high on weeks of Ripped Fuel he is also _really fucking annoying_. Rudy doesn't want to have to force his brothers to have to make that kind of decision about _him_.

There's a soft, familiar noise from the backseat, and he turns to look over his shoulder. Chaffin and Brunmeier are unconscious in the back seat, snoring, slumped against each other and drooling on each other's shoulders. Even Manimal is apparently putting his newly-discovered ability to sleep standing up to good use. It's almost sweet – hell, it _is_ sweet. Although he is never mentioning that out loud to his three beautiful killers.

He glances at Pappy, smiling. "Kids are asleep."

"Visions of grenades and porn stars dancing through their heads," Pappy drawls back, grin in his voice. Rudy doesn't even have to see his face to know the exact crook-mouthed smile Pappy will be wearing right now.

"You wanna get some too, Pap? I'll wake you if anything happens."

Pappy eyes him. "Ain't it your turn?"

He shrugs. "I'm feeling strong right now, brother. And I got a good half-hour last night."

"That is a shameless lie, Rudy Reyes, and don't you think I don't know it."

Rudy laughs; he can't help it. "Listen to us. You know I'll feel better this way anyway, so can't you just take the damn favour and go to sleep?"

Pappy's got an amused glint in his eye. "That an order, Rude? ‘Cause I don't think chain of command works that way."

Rudy snorts. "Look at Fick and Gunny, Pap, Colbert and Person – you think it _doesn't_?"

Pappy shakes his head, grinning. "Alright, fine. You win."

He leans back against the side of the humvee, still smiling. Rudy eyes him sideways. "Anyway, you were right. I _was_ asleep back then."

Pappy's soft laughter fills his ears as he settles in to wait.

***

For once the blatant stupidity of Command hasn't managed to fuck things over; they're in position outside the town by sixteen hundred, ready for the assault planned for later that night. They're all alert, ready for anyone and anything that might be planning to come at them, but then they're Recon Marines. They're _always_ alert; it doesn't mean they can't have fun at the same time.

Right now, though, Rudy can't really describe what's going on in Colbert's victor as fun; at least, not for anyone who isn't already inside.

"It's like the eighties crawled into that humvee and died there." Rudy doesn't flinch, even though he totally didn't notice Pappy coming, doesn't even get annoyed at himself for the slip. He can't stop the smile that spreads across his face. Maybe it's not that he's losing his edge, maybe it's just that it's _Pappy_ – his brain automatically categorises him as a brother, so well-known and so trusted that the other man can slide right under his defences like they'd never been there at all.

Rudy turns and shakes his head at Pappy, smile under control now. "Now, what have you got against Cyndi Lauper? She's an inspiration, Pap, it's beautiful."

Pappy eyes him. "Yeah, she's a goddamn angel, which is why I don't want to hear Colbert and Person dragging her into their humvee, violating her music and desecrating everything she stands for."

There's a loud snort from the patch of road edge Poke's standing on, spread-legged as he pisses into the desert sand. "Yeah, dawg, that's some fucking oppression right there. White man gotta sit there, violating the music of his own people, and making the rest of us sad sorry fucks listen to that shit? Fuck _that_ noise."

Rudy grins. Person and Colbert are singing in the kind of screechy falsetto that's used as a weapon by drunk men in karaoke bars all over the world; Reporter, coming in on the choruses, is marginally less intentionally dreadful, but only marginally. And anyway, despite what he said to Pappy, Rudy isn't really a fan. Girls might wanna have fun, Rudy certainly isn't gonna judge them for it, but he prefers his music with a little more complexity and a little less squeak.

There's a noise from over the other side of the road, and Rudy turns his head to look. It's the LT's boys, grinning by their victor and laughing gleefully together as they face the road. There's a swirl of movement, Lilley and Garza and a handful of others coming over to join Q-Tip and Christensen; even Doc gets beckoned into the crowd. There's more scuffling, and then everyone straightens up and bursts into... well, Rudy supposes that it's song.

"You can find me in the club, bottle full of bub, look mami I got the X if you into taking drugs, I'm into having sex, I ain't into making love so come give me a hug if you into getting rubbed…"

There's a brief moment of silence; Colbert and Person actually skip a note in surprise. And then they're back to singing at twice the volume – even Walt and Trombley are joining in this time – and the 50 Cent contingent starts rapping louder themselves and it's so awful, a hideous cacophony – no-one can stay in time even with men singing the same _song_.

Rudy starts laughing so hard he chokes a little bit; beside him Pappy's laughing just as loud. From the other side of their little group, he sees that even Fick's overcome, ducking behind a berm with shaking shoulders.

"You know, Rude," Pappy says thoughtfully, after they've all had few minutes to recover. Two One Alpha has moved on to Hungry Like The Wolf and the hip-hop division is getting stuck into Crazy in Love – Rudy thinks. It's a little hard to tell. "I ain't exactly feeling represented here."

Poke eyes him. "Thought that was my line, dawg."

Pappy just shakes his head sadly. "Duran Duran ain't the music of _my_ people."

Rudy stares at him, suddenly working out what's coming, and starts laughing again himself; and then he's joining in, voice rising in harmony with Pappy, as an outraged howl bursts out from Colbert's humvee.

"I keep a close watch on this heart of mine, I keep my eyes wide open all the time…"

***

Rudy winces a little as he reaches over for his weapon; the bruises on his side from where he slammed against the humvee door coming back from the roadblock last night aren't serious, but that doesn't mean they don't hurt. There's not one damn thing he can do to fix it – just breathe through it, pray when it all gets too much or when he just feels his soul needs it, fight to stay calm and non-judgemental and accepting of the world just as hard as he fights to kill these men, these poor sad brothers from the other side of the world. Cleaning his weapon's like a sacrament, keeps his hands busy while he prays. It passes the time.

Then Chaffin and Manimal come over to where he's stretched out beneath a cammie net, grinning and shoving at each other, Manimal with his arms draped round Chaffin's shoulders. They snort out laughter, tripping over themselves to make jokes about something that's happened over in second platoon, something Dirty Earl told Redman told that boot-fuck private who shot a three-legged goat in that village last week. They're having a good day, it's so fucking rare, but today Rudy can't bring himself to join in. Then Chaffin says something, a filthy joke about Rudy's skin colour and the quality of his coffee that would have gotten him stabbed if he'd said it back home to someone like Rudy, in the kind of places Rudy grew up. He fucking loves his brothers, always, but he can't deal with this today.

But there's ways and ways to deal with temper, and Rudy's proud of himself that today he manages the best of them, reassembles his weapon and leaves without saying a word. He wants to run, push his body right up to the edge of his limits and then past them, feel the burn and the satisfaction of remaking his physical body into something that's one step closer to perfection. But they're down to one meal a day now, have been for weeks. Rudy needs that energy for his brothers, for his team. For his TL; Pappy always needs him, and Rudy needs to be there for Pappy.

Instead he walks, frustratingly slow, right to the edge of their little camp. The sky's yellow-grey and the air gritty with dust, heat weighing him down worse than the fucking MOPP, but for Iraq it's not so bad. Looking out, he can almost see the horizon, sand meeting sky.

The camp's got the message, he doesn't want company. There's quiet voices behind him, and Rudy catches his name, but months of practise mean that ignoring the noise of the men behind him, shouting and swearing and laughter and singing, comes easier than breath. Facing out into the desert, he can't see anything or anyone alive: it's as good as being alone.

He squats down, starts taking apart his weapon again. Prayer means letting go. In this world but not of it, fear and grief and pain and a two-year-old-child in a pretty dress soaked red with her own blood – these things have no hold on him – but it's hard, it's always so hard. Rudy has to fight his own mind too, pushing and training every bit as hard as he does his physical body. He's never understood why no-one else seems to see it, that making yourself stronger and faster and _better_ is just as much about what's on the inside. What good is a weapon if there's no-one to use it?

Rudy's body has been a weapon for years; he's killed with it, and he's made his peace with that as best he can. It's still so hard.

He's deep inside himself when he hears footsteps behind him. There's a light touch on his back, and then Pappy's crouching down beside him, holding out a canteen in his hand. Rudy drinks deep; it's important to stay hydrated, out in the sun. Important to take care of himself, and he's dumber than the most boot-fuck private on his first week out of Basic if he didn't think to bring his water with him when he knew he was planning on staying out here for long. But Pappy's got his back.

"Don't know how you did it, Rude, but you've scared half the platoon. Rudy has a day when the sun doesn't shine out of his ass every time he speaks, and suddenly everyone's shitting themselves. Think you're gonna snap." Pappy's smiling as he says it, amused like he's sharing a joke. Rudy smiles back at him, pulling good humour over himself like a blanket. It's easy to do, when it's Pappy. "Should have seen Manimal and Chaffin. Those two can be fucking retarded when they get together, ‘cept the lucky thing is, they know it."

"Don't say that about your brothers, Pap," Rudy says, voice light and easy. Sometimes even pretending to feel good is enough to start a change. "You know I love them both anyway."

Pappy breathes out a sigh, smiling a little. "Yeah, Rude. I know. You're a superhero, you're the fucking Mother Teresa of the whole platoon."

There's a questioning look on Pappy's face as he looks at him, but he's smiling still as well. Rudy meets his TL's eyes and smiles back, feeling the edges of his black thoughts just beginning to lift away. There isn't any other choice than to smile. Pappy's got chapped lips and crinkled laugh lines and sunburn under the dirt on his cheeks, peeling skin and hair that's just about ready for a regulation trim. Pale eyes and pale skin, and wiry strength in his hands that's completely unlike the bulked-up muscle Rudy and half the rest of the platoon are carrying, strength of body and spirit that will see them all through this war. Being around him shouldn't be so easy, shouldn't make Rudy feel the way he does right now, but it is what it is. Some things in life you fight for every inch, but some aren't meant to be battles. Some things you just need to find the strength from within you to accept.

It's difficult, but after a long moment, Rudy breaks Pappy's gaze and stands. There's still things he can't think about, he still knows that the memories – and, worse, the doubts – are going to stick with him for a long time. He's seen one broken child carried away from him in the arms of her father, but how many children's deaths that he's never seen does Rudy bear responsibility for? But maybe that's not something he should be dwelling on, until the war's over. Whatever it will take, he'll deal with this, make himself feel whole again, but not right now. Right now he has his own responsibilities to think about – he's needed, by the rest of his team, by his platoon. By Pappy.

Pappy stands beside him, comfortably close; their shoulders almost touch. "Burden ain't all yours, Rude," he says quietly. "You don't have to take care of me all the time. Sometimes, it goes the other way."

They walk back to the camp together, smiling in the desert light.


End file.
